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Friday, 4 April 2014

Eldar vs Ultramarines with Knight 2000: Macragge Air Force

The ground trembles with the footsteps of a knight titan, aiding the
forces of Ultramarines. This Battle report is between my Eldar and the
Ultramarines air force aided by a knight. The game is 2000 points, with the
Relic mission and Dawn of war deployment.

The Armies

I once again use my 2k footdar list

Jain Zar – 200 (Warlord: Falcons swiftness) w/ Guardians

Farseer – 100 w/ guardians

[Prescience, guide, Doom]

20 Guardians – 220

2x starcannon

5 rangers - 60

10 Dire Avengers - 130

10 Dire Avengers - 130

5 Dire Avengers – 65

5 Dire Avengers - 65

10 Banshees – 150

8 Warp spiders – 152

Crimson Hunter – 180

Exarch

6 Dark reapers – 228

Starshot

Wraithlord – 160

2x bright lance

Wraithlord – 160

2x bright lance

Ultramarines with Knight ally

Captain Sicarius w/ plasma tacticals

Tactical squad

10 man, plasma cannon

Tactical squad

10 man, lascannon

Tactical squad

10 man, lascannon

5 Scouts

Sniper rifles, heavy bolter

10 Sternguard (inside the storm raven)

Combi-flamer, 2 x combi-melta

Predator

Autocannon, heavy bolters

Thunderfire Cannon

DataSlate: Storm wing

Storm raven

Assault cannon, multi melta, hurricane bolters

Storm Talon

Assault cannon, stormhammer missiles

Storm Talon

Assault cannon, stormhammer missiles

Knight Errant

This is a rather scary list and with the combination of the knight,
and the dataslate which gives teh storm raven strafing run. The sheer amount of
anti-infantry this army has will likely destroy me, unless I can get forward
quickly and get into combat. Wish me luck.

The Mission

A nice straight forward mission, the Relic, one objective, no hassle.
Deployment for this game is dawn of war as we couldn’t be bothered to roll for
it. The roll off for first turn and I win electing to go first, hoping that I
can get into combat with him turn 2 to avoid the fire power his air force will
have.

I deploy in a line as I really don’t have the room to do much else. On
the far left I deploy the banshees, I then place a unit of 10 dire avengers
next to the woods on the left but not inside so they don’t get slowed down. In
the middle of my line is a large hill so I place the dark reapers at the back,
hiding behind some trees. To their left is a wraithlord, and in front of them
on the hill are the guardians and the two hq units. To the right of this hill
the other wraithlord is deployed along with another 10 man dire avenger unit.
On the far right the warp spiders deploy across the river. I infiltrate my
rangers.

His counter deployment is a refused flank. In the middle he deploys
his tactical squad with plasma cannon inside some woods. Behind the woods go
the thunderfire cannon. To the right of this a tactical squad gets deployed
along with the predator. Far right the last tactical squad, scouts and the
knight. All the flyers are in reserve.

I infiltrate my ranger’s forwards in the woods close to the objective.

Night Fight: Turn 1

Steal the initiative: Didn’t try

The Battle

Eldar turn 1

With little to no time to kill his force I cast guide on the dark
reapers and prescience on the right wraithlord. My whole force moves forwards,
apart from the dark reapers and right wraithlord who move towards the knight.
The spiders jump forwards 14 inches towards the marines in the middle right of
the board.

The banshees attempt to run and roll a 2, so I use fleet to roll a 1,
so only 4 inches for them this turn. Shooting from the right wraithlord targets
the knight and both miss, even with the re-roll. I measure to see if the dark
reapers are in range but unfortunately because of night fight they are just out
of range of the 36, so they target the tactical marines in the middle and only
manage to kill 1 thanks to the 3+ cover save. Trying to get first blood the
left wraithlord shoots at the predator and gets a single penetrating hit, but
he makes his 5+ cover safe from the darkness. Running forwards 4 inches the
guardians target the plasma tactical and kill 2 of them with their star cannon.
Both dire avenger units run forwards but the right one is able to shoot at the
middle right tactical and kills 2. The warp spiders attempt to run forwards and
shoot at them but only roll 1 and fail to get in range.

Assault phase and the warp spiders jump back 11 inches out of harm’s
way (hopefully).

Ultramarines turn 1

Not much movement this turn, the knight stomps forwards towards my
line and sicarius leaves the tactical squad.

Straight to shooting, the knight uses its cannon on the closest dire
avenger squad and kills 4 of them in the blast, its stubber does nothing.
Lobbing shells over the woods the thunderfire cannon targets the guardians and
places the template over the farseer, the shot locks on and after all the
templates come down he ends up with 16 hits. The majority of these wound and I attempt
to look out sire the first few onto Jain zar as she can absorb a lot of
punishment, but she manages to take 2 wounds on the first 4 wounds. I then fail
a look out sir killing the farseer, the next closest model is a weapons
platform and that also fails its save, then to finish it off 8 more guardians
die. Brilliant. The plasma tactical shoot at the guardians killing 8 more (all
look out sir rolls from jain zar), the predator gets a few shots in and kills 2
more. Finally the tactical squad in the middle shoots at the guardians as well,
and getting a number of wounds and has me do the bolt wounds first, killing 2
guardians, his lascannon hit and wounded as well so that's next and I fail the lookout
sir roll, killing Jain Zar. End of the turn and the two remaining guardians
hold but the dire avengers run for it.

Eldar turn 2

From reserve comes the crimson hunter, and after the performance of
the thunderfire cannon, goes straight for that. A single unit of dire avengers
comes in and moves towards the relic. Warp jumping the warp spiders go 14
inches again and attempt to get behind the knight to do some damage. The rest
of my force moves towards the relic. Rally!
The running dire avengers get back into the fight.

3 shots from the hunter exarch hit their target and 2 wound, the
techpriest is the closest model so gets removed, stopping that threat. Running
first to get into the back arch the spiders then shoot at the knight, they
manage to get 2 glancing hits on his rear armour reducing it to 4 hull points.
The right wraithlord shoots both lances at the knight and 1 penetrates but his
ion shield saves the day. The dark reapers do the same but again any damage is
saved by the shield. On the left the wraithlord again shoots at the predator
and this time gets a single glancing hit. In the middle the dire avengers shoot
at the plasma tactical and manage to bring down 3 of them, the marines fail
their moral test and run away 6.

Assault phase and the warp spiders jump 11 inches towards the enemy,
hoping to draw back the knight for a turn.

Ultramarines turn 2

Needing a 2+ the Stormwing comes into play. A single storm talon goes
after the crimson hunter while the storm raven and other talon move into the
middle of the table. Again the knight moves forwards and ends up next to the
dire avengers. On the right both the scouts and tactical move to attack the
warp spiders. The plasma tactical rally and move back into the woods to face
the banshees.

With both assault cannon and missiles the left storm talon attacks the
crimson hunter and manages to get 2 penetrating hits and 2 glances, I fail to
evade any and the crimson hunter gets wrecked. With the banshees getting very
close the plasma tactical shoot them, but all the shots fail to wound. The
storm raven now shows how devastating strafing run can be, it targets the 10
man dire avenger squad next to the relic, and guns down 9 on its own, the hurricane
bolters and assault cannons needing 2+ to hit with a re-roll, it’s scary. But that's
not all; it uses power of the machine spirit to fire a missile off at a
wraithlord and wounds it (the left one). The other talon targets the undamaged
wraithlord and manages to rend it dealing a wound to it. On the right the
tactical marines use their pistols and kill 2 warp spiders. The knight targets
the dark reapers with its cannon this turn and locks on, hitting and wounding 4
of the warriors, but they go to ground and only 2 die.

Assault phase and the knight charges into the wraithlord in the woods,
the over watch does nothing and the lord misses all of its attacks. It cuts the
lord to ribbons with its D weapon. In my opponents deployment zone the scouts
and tactical charge the warp spiders, and despite a lucky knife to the face which
kills a tactical marine the warp spiders were out matched and outnumbered, unfortunately
more eldar souls are lost.

Eldar turn 3

With my force in tatters I don’t have much left I can do but try to
take the relic and hide. From reserve the last unit of avengers arrives and
moves towards it. The banshees go straight for hte plasma tactical and can
possibly get into assault. In a desperate attempt to do some damage the
wraithlord goes after the knight, the lone dire avengers and guardians move
past the relic allowing the rangers to pick it up.

Shots from the dark reapers miss the knight and the wraithlord does
exactly the same. The guardians and dire avengers attempt to take out some
tactical marines but fail to wound.

With nothing else but to charge the banshees attempt to assault the
plasma tactical, they need a 9 charging though cover and manage an 8, shame but
they don’t make it. The wraithlord charges into the knight and glances with its
hammer of wrath attack, reducing it to 3 hull points. Unfortunately the knight
strikes first and deal 7 wounds to it, killing him with ease.

Ultramarines turn 3

Dropping into hover mode the storm raven drops off the sternguard who
go after the banshees, and in support the left talon does the same. Sicarius
then joins the sterngaurd as they are more fitting body guards. The knight goes
stomping into the middle of my line able to charge whatever he wants. The right
stormtalon flies towards the dark reapers, for some reason he wants them dead. The
right/middle tactical squad moves forwards wanted to grab the objective.

Talon vs dark reapers, the assault cannon gets 2 rends on its own and
the missiles deal and extra 2, the remaining dark reapers die. The knight targets
the newest dire avenger squad with its cannon and melta 2 of them. The heavy
stubber shoots at the other and kills 1. Using kracken bolts the sterngaurd
shoot the banshees, with the 30 inch range they are all in rapid fire range,
and with ap 4, the banshees never stood a chance and despite going to ground
all get cut down. The hovering talon shoots the 2 remaining guardians and kills
them both. Sniper fire from the scouts kills 3 dire avengers on the right and
the tactical target them as well killing 2 more. The far right tactical marines
shoot at them finishing them off. Storm raven again kills a squad in a turn,
this time it’s the rangers dropping the relic. To finish off the shooting phase
the predator targets the dire avengers on the hill and finishes them off. Leaving
me with a lone dire avenger and a crippled squad.

Assault and the knight charge both squads. His D weapon only kills 1
but his stomp attacks reduce the larger dire avenger squad to 1 man. Both units
brake from combat and run for it running 11 and 9 inches.

At this point its game over, I need double 1 to rally either model and
even if I did, I'm getting gunned down next turn any way.

Victory to the UltraMarines.

Post-Battle

When thinking of a word to describe this game, Massacre comes to mind.
But this was bound to happen sooner or later, having an army which is skewed in
such as way its always going to have a hard counter which will just destroy it.
This game I faced that hard counter, its a shame to end this list on a loss but
that’s what happens. Over all I played 4 games with the list and it ended 2-2-0
so not terrible.

·Guardians: I need to spread them out more when I'm
not attacking to reduce template damage, its such a simple thing to do but It
has to be done. School boy error really

This was my first game facing a knight and honestly it didn’t feel bad
so I would happily face them again. And next time I hope I destroy it!

But with that over, its time to move onto different things. Next month
I will be entering another 1850 tournament, so I will be focusing on a list for
that and testing it out. So expect to see more army lists soon and I would
really appreciate feedback on them when I do post them. I don’t really want to
use the same list as I did last time but I’m not against it.

5 comments:

Don't feel bad, your list was good but his was mean. Plus, it seemed like your dice did not like you one bit. How many BS4 shots did you miss in a row? With re-rolls no less! Maybe you could have taken out his knight and mauled his infantry but you were out of options once his three flyers came on.

No wave serpents against his list pretty much meant you were dead from the get go. I play Dark Eldar, and toughness 3 infantry MUST have a transport or be stuck behind cover, running out in the open is suicidal in 6th ed. That storm wing is brutal and requires a dedicated anti air presence to counter, you either needed additonal fliers, aegis line, or the eldar anti-air tank (can't remember what it is called). You can't really be faulted for not having those things though. Overall, assault units don't perform too well unless they can assualt from a transport (like mine can) or sport a 3+ or better armor save so I would dump the banshees in the future.